Campaign to End Cruel Confinement of Farm Animals Wins BENNY Awards

The Humane Society of the United States received two awards from The Business Ethics Network, which celebrates outstanding contributions to the advancement of corporate ethics, for its campaign to end cruel confinement of farm animals.

The Path to Victory Award, voted by the BEN Award Committee, and the Populist Category Path to Victory Benny Award, voted by members of the public, recognized The HSUS’ accomplishments in persuading some of the world’s largest food companies to eliminate the use of pig gestation crates in their supply chains, including McDonald's, SUBWAY, Target and General Mills.

The new policies from these and more than 60 other major food companies signals a reversal in a three-decade-old trend in the pork industry that leaves most breeding pigs confined day and night in gestation crates during their four-month pregnancies. These cages are roughly the same size as the animals’ bodies and designed to prevent them from even turning around. Breeding pigs are subsequently transferred into another crate to give birth, re-impregnated, and put back into a gestation crate. This happens pregnancy after pregnancy for their entire lives, adding up to years of virtual immobilization. Gestation crate confinement systems have come under fire from veterinarians, farmers, animal welfare advocates, animal scientists, consumers and others.